St. Nicholas Volume 20

Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893 edition. Excerpt: ...us. " Now I am sure, Sahib, that it was the Evil One that had put that collar about his neck for a reward of great wickedness. They considered the rice for a time, tasting it little by little, and then he with the collar cried a cry and they ate it all up, chattering and dancing about the fields. But they had not gratitude in their hearts for their good meal--and rice is not cheap in the hills this year." "They knew. They knew," said his wife, quietly. "They knew that we meant evil toward them. We should have given it as a peace-offering. Hanuman, the monkey-god, was angry with us. We should have made a sacrifice." "They showed no gratitude at all," said the farmer, raising his voice. "That very evening they overset and broke my pipe which I had left in the fields, and they stole my wife's silver anklets from under the bed. Then I said: 'The play is played. We will have done with this child's game.' So I cooked a mess of rice, larger and sweeter than the first, and into it I put of white arsenic enough to kill a hundred bullocks. In the morning I laid that good monkey-food once more in the high grass, and by my father's beard, Sahib, there came out of the forest monkeys and monkeys and monkeys, and yet more monkeys, leaping and frisking and walking upon their hinder legs, and he, the leader of them all, was the monkey with the collar! They gathered about the dish and dipped their hands in and ate a little, and spat it out and dipped afresh; neither eating the food nor leaving it alone. 1, hidden behind the bush, laughed to myself and said, 'Softly, softly, O foolish monkeyfolk! There may not be enough for all, but those who eat shall never need ask...show more